I don’t get to talk much these days with my old pal, former Texas Republican Party Chairman Tom Pauken.

He lives in Dallas; I’m way up yonder in Amarillo. Pauken has had business dealings in Amarillo, but I sense he’s backing away from them, as he would call whenever he came to town.

Here’s what I know about him.

He is a true-blue conservative. He’s the real thing. He doesn’t think much of the “neo-cons” who advised President George W. Bush; he also doesn’t think much of the former president, for that matter.

Pauken served as an Army intelligence officer in Vietnam and he believes the Iraq War was a mistake. He believes in low taxes, less government spending and he is fervently pro-life on abortion.

He’s also penned an essay in which he declares his belief that the Texas Republican National Convention delegation will line up to support the party’s eventual nominee Donald J. Trump, even though most voters endorsed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in the Texas GOP primary this past March.

https://www.tribtalk.org/2016/06/03/trumps-in-charge-but-he-shouldnt-take-it-for-granted/

What I didn’t read in Pauken’s essay is a personal endorsement from him for the man who’s about to become the GOP’s presidential nominee. I attached the link to this blog, so you can see for yourself. Pauken seems strangely detached from Trump — which has become sort of the norm for many of the party’s elder statesmen and women.

Trump is getting a lot of endorsements, to be sure. U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan announced his intention to back him, but one could not escape the feeling that the speaker was swallowing real hard before he uttered his words of endorsement.

My trick knee is acting up again. It’s telling me that former Texas GOP chairman Pauken is getting a lump in his own throat as he ponders his party ‘s nomination of someone such as Donald Trump.